The tariffs aren't about protectionism. No one in that administration is stupid enough to do that and there is verifiable evidence of this. The agendas and goals of this administration are as follows...You implement tariffs and use them as a way to gain deals on rare earth mineral and other favorable resources you will need going forward. Broadly, you get The Stargate Project going. You get robotics and AI advanced. You build robots and manufacturing facilities and through technology you completely outproduce all rival "cheap labor" nations.
The goal was never to get Cletus making t-shirts in a factory. The goal is to transition the nation into the ultimate robotics, automation, and AI country on Earth. Every single thing points to this and the administration has made multiple errors letting this fact slip. Meetings with Jensen (but not any of the other chip makers), Elon working close with the administration, Lutnick talking about robot workforces, building of manufacturing to eliminate the China-Taiwan risk on semis, referring to the tariffs as "national security matters," the odd fixation on Greenland, the breakthroughs going on even at this moment, it's all there. If I'm wrong, then the U.S. is done. It's legitimately over. If I'm right, then U.S. is going to be the biggest juggernaut of the next century and beyond.
Here's how this works. If the U.S. starts making breakthroughs publicly, it's over for China. The only option they have is to take Taiwan and cut the U.S.'s supply to semiconductors to power its automation and it would work. The U.S. despite having a technological behemoth on its side, needs those chips. If you manufacture them in the U.S. though, China loses that strategic option. This is how the U.S. is going to dominate. Oh and about Greenland...You have massive square footage for data centers that can be naturally cooled. They'll melt the ice of Greenland with the heat from the computation they intend to run.